About 30 cyclists from the Tokyo Cycling Club met at Nakano station at 10am in the morning and begin an all-day ride. We first rode down a street under a canopy of cherry blossoms, a truly beautiful scene.

After watching PORCO ROSSO tonight, there are no Miyazaki movies left for me, save for his new one coming out this summer. What began with either PRINCESS MONONOKE or NAUSICAA quite a few years ago, has ended tonight with the fitting PORCO ROSSO. One last trip into the enchanted Miyazaki universe with its unparalleled animation and score. I just kept thinking, I’d take Miyazaki’s traditional 2D animation over any CG animation ever made, and no matter how good CG gets, I would still take Miyazaki’s animation over it any day.

PORCO is a simple story following the simple life of a pig-man that just happens to be the best pilot in Italy in the 1920′s. And he speaks Japanese, as do all the other characters, though all signs and labels are in Italian as well. There is quite a bit of mystery surrounding him that is only revealed to us seemingly in a whisper, but it is enough to make us like Porco and see why others do as well.

The ending may have been a little too ambiguous, either part of Miyazaki writing himself into a corner, or just wanting the mystery surrounding Porco’s fate too live on in the viewer’s imagination all the stronger.

I’d classify PORCO as one of Miyazaki’s more industrial, anti-war movies, in line with LAPUTA and HOWL’S. These are all great movies, but I prefer his overtly Nature worship movies like NAUSICAA (one of the few truly flawless films I’ve ever seen) and TOTORO.